‘Tearaway is ideal showcase of PS Vita’s bespoke features’ – Yoshida

Tearaway was unveiled by LittleBigPlanet creators Media Molecule at Sony’s pre-gamescom conference last week, and President of Sony’s Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida has told VG247 why the publisher believes it’s the best reason to own a PS Vita.

Yoshida explained that while Tearaway is an ideal showcase of what PS Vita can deliver over other formats, that the handheld’s launch slate didn’t perhaps embrace those values to the same degree.

“Tearaway is really a good example of a game made from the ground-up with PS Vita’s functionality in mind,” Yoshida explained, “At the launch, we put so many new functions on PS Vita, and many launch titles tried to use functionalities like touch in different ways, and some of it wasn’t natural and was criticised by media people when it felt forced or tacked on.”

“I’m hoping that when people try Tearaway, the use of features on PS Vita will feel much more naturally integrated to the core gameplay”, Yoshida added.

Sony’s approach to first-party developers and working closely with studios under the publisher’s umbrella has given rise to several iconic franchises over the years. Yoshida believes that the strong reaction to Tearaway’s reveal is vindication of this approach.

“It works both ways now in Sony Computer Entertainment”, Yoshida explained, “We participate in designing the hardware platform as well as making content. PS Vita was the very first platform that, from the very beginning of the project, we were involved in discussions, making and trying out prototypes, to see what works and what doesn’t work in making the game experiences.”

“We feel like we’re part of hardware development teams as far as PS Vita is concerned. That involvement helps our teams think about what features to bring to new platforms in terms of making games.”

This close collaboration is key to making content that fully utilises the hardware at hand, Yoshida stressed, “It has to be the way that our games take good advantage of the unique features that each platform brings, and I’m very happy to see yesterday’s announcement and the reactions to Tearaway as proof of concept of these relationships between our hardware and development teams.”

If you missed the Tearaway announcement, check out the game’s official trailer here. It will make you feel warm and fuzzy inside.